1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to computing environments and, more particularly, to methods and systems for structuring and implementing access control in a computing environment.
2. Description of Related Art
The science of computing has undergone rapid changes in recent years. In the past, computer applications were largely restricted to execution on a single machine, comprising a single processor. Often, the machine on which the application is executed would take the form of a server, accessible over a network by client machines. With the recent growth of the Internet, network-based computing has become more and more commonplace.
Within the past decade, the computing and networking industry has begun to embrace the concept of a cluster-based computing environment. In a cluster-based computing environment, a number of computers may be clustered together (e.g., physically proximate to each other, on one or more racks for instance), interconnected to one another by a network switching system (e.g., one or more switches or routers). A computer application may then be divided into parts, each of which may be executed on a separate machine of the cluster, and communication between the constituent parts of the application may occur via the switching system.